Mitchell: The ESRI Guide to GIS Analysis, ch. 1

GIS technology 30 years old

Good for making maps: but can do more than that: GIS Analysis

• learn new things, help make decisions
• maps result from GIS analysis: have important impact (visual)

Why GIS might not be used:

• lack of data (changing rapidly, but still a problem)
• difficult software (but now easy interfaces; still complex though)
• lack of understanding about GIS analysis (the book)

• where are things in geographic space?
• mapping variations in amount: least and most
• mapping density
• finding what is inside
• finding what is nearby
• mapping change

What is GIS Analysis?

GIS Analysis as a process

• simple visual analysis to complex digital modeling
• akin to the research process

1. Frame the Question:

• where are endangered ecosystems in Delaware County?
• where are potential recreational trail corridors in Delaware County?
• how can viable OWU food waste be efficiently distributed to area food banks?
• where does the food sold on campus come from, and what are the consequences of our consumption of these foods?
• who is your audience?  what is your final goal?

2. Understand your Data

• what is the context of your question?  who are the experts?  literature, people
• what do you have to know about the context of the question to answer it?

• what is an endangered ecosystem?  what are specific examples?
• what are the goals of recreational trails?  what do they connect?
• how is food waste reuse assessed and how is it collected?
  
• what or who can help you to understand the issue: literature, people

3. Choose a Method

• what data is available to help answer your question?  cost? compatibility?
• what data do you have to generate yourself? easy vs. difficult vs impossible

4. Process the Data: specific analysis

• ex) generate endangered areas by comparing areas defined as important ecosystems to their closeness to recent development
• ex) generate potential trails by generating important points and areas to connect; and determining feasible paths between those points; relate potential trails to property ownership and other factors
• ex) generate a plan for distributing food waste from campus to area food banks
• ex) analyze the global impact of specific food consumption on campus

5. Look at the Results

• generate a map (with a database) and use it to present results
• ex) map of endangered ecosystems in Delaware Co: distribute to ??
• ex) map of potential trails in Delaware Co.: planners, bike clubs, etc.
• ex) a map that guides distribution of OWU food waste
• ex) map of the global impact of what we eat

• vital part of the process: communication and advocacy

• Simple in concept; complex in application!

Understanding Geographic Features

• we reduce the complexity of the real world in order to collect data and map it

A feature: “something inherent and distinctive”

Types of features (mappable data)

1. Discrete Features: at any location, the feature is there or is not there

• point, line, and area example: p. 12
• corresponds to vector data structure in most GIS programs

2. Continuous Features: feature is everywhere in varying amounts

• ex) temperature
• ex) elevation
• ex) soil or bedrock (Delaware Data)

3) Features Summarized by Area: census or count data

• define an area; count features in the area; assign total to the area
• know how many features in an area, but not where they are in the area
  ex) US Census data, animal census

Two Ways of Representing Geographic Features

1) Vector: points, lines, and areas

• each point has a unique location in a coordinate system: latitude/longitude
• points connect to make lines
• series of points, connected to make lines, which close are areas

2) Raster: grid of varying resolution with cells

• air photo

Different data structures; can be related in GIS but generated differently and stored and processed differently.

Map Projections and Coordinate Systems

Review from Geog 222 or 353

• coordinate systems: based on the idea of a graph
• locations in geographic space: x, y
• latitude longitude vs state plane coordinate system
• coordinate layers of GIS information

• map projection
• 3D earth to 2D map
• distortions inherent in process (shape, area)
• distortions less evident at detailed scales
• but GIS layers must have same map projection or will not align properly

Understanding Geographic Attributes

• a geographic feature (point, line, area) has one or more attributes
• ex) area is a vernal pool, it is 1 acre, it is on private property (3 attributes)

Types of attribute values

• categories: qualitative
• ex) vernal pool (area) vs river (line)

Ranks: quantitative with order

• ex) water quality: high, medium, low

Counts and amounts: quantitative, total numbers

• ex) 35 robins in one nature reserve, 67 in a second reserve

Ratios: relationship between two quantities

• ex) people per household in census tracts in Delaware county

Data tables: the ‘database’ or spreadsheet where the feature attributes are found

• ex) select all properties in Delaware County that are residential land use
• ex) calculate and summarize the total value of all properties a proposed trail crosses

Course Project Ideas

• apply Mitchell’s process of GIS Analysis to project

General Context: Green Mapping OWU | Delaware (map & map)

Focus: Green Trail / Campus Habitats (plants, animals, humans) / Environmental Monitoring

Green Trail + Habitats + sites (brochure map and map back and proposal)

• Sustainability Region Rough Proposal

Environmental Monitoring

Michelle Lee (Stap student) searched using the keywords “environmental monitoring outdoor” and found some key concepts:

• human health – the importance of current research (Gak Map one  two  three  report)
• pollution -
• ecology -
• measurable quantities -
• wireless equipment or remote sensing -
• network of sensors – important for a study of patterns and variation, thus important for significance of findings
• real-time monitoring – large data set implies difficulty analyzing the results (also flexibility interpreting the data), but its advantage lies in relevance to our daily lives (people can easily identify with it), in its applicability, as well as in its robustness (realistic setting reduces data misinterpretation)
• indoor (microenvironment) VS outdoor (microclimate – immediately around a building, where people congregate such that features of the place has a high human impact)
• biotic (involving animals, plants and human participants or research subjects) VS abiotic (chemical measurements)
• monetary investment
• statistical analysis and significance – choices choices choices, and implications

Some useful websites include

• A report on measuring tobacco smoke in Stanford U, compiled by website Exposure Science: this site hosts discussion and crowd-sourced materials on methodologies, tools, and findings for educational and research use.
• Wikipedia article on Environmental Monitoring
• EPA page on Environmental Monitoring
• Second International Conference in Sustainability in Energy and Buildings (SEB’10) includes a section on the importance of environmental monitoring on measuring success/progress in sustainability projects.

Student comments on project ideas

• agricultural issues
• solar
• light sensors (inside and outside)
• sustainable planning
• Green Business assessment
• Trail Development
• Wind Turbine
• Health issues
• Food supply
• University Nature Preserves

Sustainability at OWU | Sean Kinghorn

Technology shapes how we do things…stairs vs slides in buildings.

Geospatial Analysis – A Comprehensive Guide

Notes and examples on “Introduction & Terminology” and “Conceptual Frameworks for Spatial Analysis.”

Jargon!

Introduction & Terminology

1. On applications

• Noise Mapping (Google) & Noise Mapping
• Air Quality Mapping (Google) & Air Quality Mapping
• Crime Mapping (Google) & Crime Mapping
• Health Mapping (Google) & Health Mapping

2. GIS, Spatial Analysis, and Software

• GIS Software Packages

3. Terminology & Definitions

• massive array of jargon (Table 1-1)
• statistics & GIS

Conceptual Frameworks for Spatial Analysis

The Geospatial Perspective: “a distinct perspective on the world, a unique lens through which to examine events, patterns, and processes that operate on or near the surface of our planet.”

The domain of geospatial analysis is the surface of the Earth, extending upwards in the analysis of topography and the atmosphere, and downwards in the analysis of groundwater and geology. In scale it extends from the most local, when archaeologists record the locations of pieces of pottery to the nearest centimetre or property boundaries are surveyed to the nearest millimetre, to the global, in the analysis of sea surface temperatures or global warming. In time it extends backwards from the present into the analysis of historical population migrations, the discovery of patterns in archaeological sites, or the detailed mapping of the movement of continents, and into the future in attempts to predict the tracks of hurricanes, the melting of the Greenland ice-cap, or the likely growth of urban areas.

Geospatial Analysis: what happens where, and makes use of geographic information that links features and phenomena on the Earth’s surface to their locations.

1. Basic “Primitives”

• place: complicated concept: Wikipedia
• attributes: “any recorded characteristic or property of a place” + measurement levels (qualitative, quantitative) + examples in ArcGIS
• objects: raster (images) & vector (points, lines, areas) below (from Making Maps):

• maps: defining maps & defining maps and more defining maps (PDF)
• multiple properties of place: attributes & classification
• fields: discrete (example) and continuous (example) phenomena
• networks: example & example
• density: examples (Google)
• detail: scale and generalization (from Making Maps):

• topology: here and in ArcGIS.

2. Spatial Relationships

• co-location: poverty and riots or mammography and income or curious bugs.
• distance and direction: garbage pickup (network analysis)
• spatial context: more or less the same as co-location
• neighborhood: defining a neighborhood (buffer) in GIS and viewsheds & Civil War viewsheds.
• spatial heterogeneity: “The results of any analysis over a limited area can be expected to change as that limited area is relocated, and to be different from the results that would be obtained for the surface of the Earth as a whole.”  In essence, places are complicated and prediction from place to place difficult.
• spatial dependence: even though places are complicated: Tobler’s “First Law of Geography”: “All things are related, but nearby things are more related than distant things.”  Example: Bike trails and property values
• spatial sampling: weather map and terrain:

• spatial interpolation: filling in between known data

• smoothing and sharpening (generalization; see above)

3. Spatial Statistics

• Spatial probability: probability of landslides
• Uncertainty: variation in how certain we are about what we analyze and map with GIS: soils and water quality
• Statistical inference: defined and predicting radiation spread and inferring who you are for marketing

4. Spatial Data Infrastructure

• Geoportals: defined and available GIS data for Delaware Co. Ohio and the world.
• Metadata: NSDI

• Interoperability: standards for spatial data (so everything works together): OGC

…All this jargon…

1. Readings

Schuurman ch. 1, “Geography Matters”

Introducing the Identities of GIS

The Success of GIS: is it now what Geography is?  A ubiquitous technology / computing (example)

• technological advances, widespread adoption (research, business, gov, personal)
• people may not have heard of GIS but they use it and are affected by it
• GoogleMaps or Yahoo Maps or MapQuest are all GIS
• municipal, utilities management: Delware County Ohio: DALIS Project
• business and marketing: PRIZM data: you are where you live
• crowdsourcing (example) (example) and mapping/gis
• geo-privacy

“This book is designed to inform the reader about precisely how GIS affects them as well as myriad social processes” (1)

• a more human & social approach to technology, intellectual rather than only technological

The problem of GIS and geography: love/hate

• GIS as one way of understanding “geography” – other approaches may be lost in the dust
• quantitative vs. qualitative methods
• epistemology: The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.  How we know.
• Many approaches to the study of Geography (particularly in the cultural, social, human realm) are not that amenable to GIS.

The Identity of GIS: What Is It?

Delware County Ohio: DALIS Project: a tool for storing complex data; practical problem solving

• what is where: data input, analysis, output

“PsychoGeography” maps / Mental Maps

• a different what and where it is
• weird stuff

Delaware Recreational Trails

• what is most important when locating a recreational trail?
• logic of quantitative methods for optimizing, or qualitative data used to anticipate how people will react (and why)?  Epistemological issues!
• Delaware Trails research paper (PDF)

Where Does GIS Come From?

• 1960s era technology and epistemology

McHarg and the GIS “overlay” method: locating a road: pre-computer era

• encode in a computer: technology and a particular way of knowing
• what is not taken into account in this approach
• spatial analysis: a means of extracting information (knowledge) from data
• let a computer do what McHarg did
• maps allow us to see raw data, or interact with data as we are analyzing it, or show the results of what we did
• 1950s-60s: development of computational analysis and spatial analysis tools
• wed technology to methods of knowing

• Harvard Graphics Lab: research spurred development of GIS software (and ESRI)

The Messy Business of Digging for Roots: GIS’s Intellectual Antecedents

Examples of the Precursors of GIS: technology is easy, epistemology not

• ex) J.K. Wright: “The Terminology of Certain Map Symbols” (1944): point, line, area: 1930s for map symbolization; basis of vector data

• ex) certain kinds of data easier to collect and analyze and map, they seem more intuitive maybe because they are what we are used to doing.
• ex) Historians reluctance to use GIS: Historical GIS

What does GIS stand for?

• definitions describe technology (systems; application): GIS(ystems) = GIS
• hard/software for data input, analysis, output
• “black box:” assume the methods in the software are legitimate, don’t question or think about what is going on in the box

• definitions describing methods and process (science; theory): GIS(cience) = GISci
• origin of the methods, critique of the methods, new methods
• conceptual models of geographic space, sphericity of the real world vs. flat world of GIS,
• uncertainty and error, analytical methodologies, cognitive aspects.
• also Participatory GIS, Critical Cartography & GIS: myriad of human/social issues
• justifying and shaping an intellectual/academic role in GIS

• myriad of issues of intellectual importance (that one may not think about at all if only approaching GIS as black box technology).
• epistemology (how we know)
• ontology (what the world must be like in order to be known): in GIS, points, lines, areas… is that what the world is like? Or what it is like in order for us to understand it?

• Maps (as part of GIS) complicate things even more: example) species range maps (what is a range? a species?)

• does geography (and its concepts/theories) drive GIS, or does GIS drive geography?  Debates in the field.

Data in, Information Out: Common Ground between GISys and GISci

GISys and GISci hard to differentiate in practice

• ex) data classification: the categories we put things into
• ex) house: what defines what a house is?  Is an apartment a house?  A dorm?  A condo?  A long-term residential hotel?  The kind of issue both Sys and Sci people have to deal with
• ex) boundaries: complexity in drawing: neighborhood boundaries have to be drawn if you are using GIS, but where to draw them?  How do you define a neighborhood (which is a classification of place)
• visualization: using intuition and knowledge to see patterns and connections:
  different epistemological approach – visual, not analytical.
• Dr Snow example: Broad St. pump and cholera p. 15

Geography Matters

• a quadzillion GIS applications… and jobs

2. Your Introductions & Interesting GIS application (w/examples)

• Major, year, experience with mapping & GIS, hobbies, future goals, favorite goat breeds, etc.
  

3. Next Time

• see course schedule
• after class: blog clean-up and questions

On Pareidolia

Geography 355: a follow up to Geography 222 & 353

• But no prereq!  Why?  Problems with this! Or not!
• Best to take 222 then 353 then 355 but any combination OK

Different ways to teach a geographic information systems (GIS) course like this one:

• Lectures + series of exercises (Geog 222)
• Lectures + one big exercise broken into parts (Geog 353)

Or get away from those formats: even more open, flexible, interactive

• Student presentations of readings (w/some by me)
• Self guided tutorial (w/my & classmates help)
• Applied, real-world group project or projects (practicum, service learning, etc.)

Exhibit A: GIS Texts for course (Schuurman, Mitchell, Getting to Know ArcGIS 10) and software (ArcGIS)

• GIS: set of concepts and hardware and software
• Data input, analysis, output
• Capabilities and applications expanding exponentially

• Data Input (how?)
• Data Layers (examples)
• Data analysis (examples)
• Data output (printer, webmaps, etc.)
• ex) Delaware GIS Data in ArcGIS
• all in a social/human context (Schuurman book)

Course goal: become familiar (or more familiar) with GIS concepts, functionality, software

Exhibit B: class student projects

• Delaware Recreational Trail and Green Spaces
• Mapping Ambivalence
• OWU Green Poster Maps (outside room 207 Sci Ctr): Campus/Delaware and Delaware County
• Olentangy River Expedition Project & Maps (side 1 & side 2)
• Mt. Holyoke “Green Trail”
• OWU “Green Trail” Project Proposal & Maps (side 1 & side 2)
• Sustainability Region Draft Proposal

GIS is so popular because it is useful: many applications, but GIS applications are a lot of work!

• Data input: where is data from?  format?  what data do you need?
• typical: 50% to 75% of time and cost is in finding and processing data in any GIS project

• Analysis: how analytical capabilities of GIS solve real problems?
• Examples of mapping/GIS analysis: how did they analyze the data?

• Output: on computer screen?  paper?  WWW?  To what audience?

The complexities of an actual application

• Understand the software, your data and the application area, the research process, goals.
• The human context: working in a group, project politics, costs involved, institutions within which GIS is supposed to function

Course Goal: Learn that GIS is a bunch of software functions in GIS and much more than a bunch of software functions in Arc GIS

The goal this semester is to bring together exhibits A and B

• Learn about GIS as a software tool: its functions, capabilities
• Apply what we learn to a real world project
• In working through a real world application we will learn what GIS is really about much more than just software and hardware

Geography 353: Scripted project, all figured out for you, me active, you more passive

• Useful for learning…but…

This course: a bit more active learning for all of us

• We will work as a group (or in sub groups) throughout the semester
• You will be active in shaping what we do and how we do it
• The success of the course depends on your engagement in the course
• You will push yourself and me to get the most you can get out of this course

Problems: anxiety provoking, potential for disorder and problems, unmotivated & passive students

Benefits: learn a lot in “real world” setting with real problems to solve, forced to move beyond passive lump in class, maybe even have an impact

• Look out the GIS Lab window
• Delaware Trails Project

OWU students: smart, motivated, engaged; and small class sizes

• Upper level courses should involve real engagement (so that is what I expect)

Bottom Line: for this course to work:

• Active participation by all students: lumpen passivity not allowed
• Collaboration with each other and OWU and community folks
• Students should expect to play an active and vital role in the class and in the project!

Review: Syllabus and Schedule and General Course Structure (blog)

Create your Course Blog

1) go to wordpress.com

2) sign up and create a blog

3) set up the look of the blog and create some categories

• Class Readings
• Class Project
• Class Exercises
• Evaluations
• Personal

4) new post: introduction to you

5) new post: Schurmann reading (ch. 1) notes, comments, questions

6) new post: One GIS application area of interest, with at least 3-5 sources/links & embedded graphics

7) email me the URL to your Blog by the end of class today and have the other stuff done by class time Wednesday.

Finish your projects!

1) Please discuss strategy with me before “bothering” real people (anyone other than faculty). Always prepare yourself by doing some research ahead of time, so you don’t sound like a lizard.

2) Think about collecting information that is appropriate for your final product: a 11×17 map. You don’t need tons of information, but you do need information that is clear, coherent, and substantial and that will resonate with our audience. Talk to me to get ideas about information/data that is appropriate for your project.

3) Discuss what you are planning to do before you start creating maps or entering data in ArcGIS. This so you don’t spend a huge amount of time doing GIS work in a non-optimal manner.

4) Think about your project in terms of the sketches we created for each project. Create new sketches, layouts, etc. with my input and feedback: this will help you think about appropriate data and maps (2 and 3 above).

5) The course for the rest of the semester is unstructured. Class time is a time you can find me and you can get together with your group members. If you are not in class, I am assuming you are working outside of class on the project. Do not let the flexible nature of the class lure you into procrastination.

6) You need to have your projects complete (data collected, mapped) by Monday April 25 for a presentation of results. A course evaluation will be assigned (you assessing your work in the class, and the class) and due finals week (this should not be a huge undertaking).

For our next meeting: Monday March 21: be prepared with a specific schedule to complete your project, if you have not already done so. Pay attention to practical details: scheduling fieldwork, any equipment you may need, contacts, etc.

Get going!

ArcGIS Tutorial

• Introduction to the Tutorial (updated for ArcGIS 9.3)
• Make sure, before you leave, that you understand how to do the tutorial.
• Access to Sci Ctr and Room.
• Copy the tutorial files into a new folder (with your name) in the Geog 355 folder on your computer.
• Blog chapter by chapter notes/comments (brief) with any questions, problems, key functions learned.

Green Mapping Projects

• Progress: Car, bike, and walking routes on campus (home to class) for physiological measures; contact for Olentangy River Project (Erin Miller, Green Coordinator, City of Columbus; old project: proposed Olentangy River Trail map), OWU air travel (?).
• The Green Trail Proposal (PDF): use as a model (adjust to your project).
• Create new mock-ups on paper: update the sketches (back table in GIS lab): use paper, Delaware Maps
• Presentation of proposal (and due as PDF) on project blog Monday (Feb 21)
• Mark Cooper visit next week (M or W?)

Today: Mitchell chapters 2, 3 & 4 + Projects Update

Projects: I asked each group to make a significant effort towards a project proposal for the group on the new project blogs. Each group should be prepared to update the class on their progress towards this goal today. Specify and plan expeditions, trips, field work, etc. Specify costs.

Goal: prepare for a visit by Mark Cooper and other Communications & Marketing office people next week; prepare for project proposal.

Additional issues:

• eWaste Recycling: Tim Schmidt OWU CPR Proposal
• OWU Energy Audit (PDF)

Project Progress:

Main Green Map: review categories: is everything covered?

OWU Green / Curricular Trail

Olentangy River

• Planning expedition + equipment + costs

Earthly Delights Around OWU

• start with Excursions near OWU (Fall 2010, PDF)

Eating OWU

• where to get good food
• where to make food (kitchens, utensils)
• how to make good food: Eating Green at OWU Cookbook (PDF)

OWU Gak Map: What is your Body exposed to at OWU?

• Counter with Healthy Spaces Map on reverse? What should you expose your body to at OWU.
• Designing Healthier Communities

Topics for Global OWU Map: big categories of our impact at global scale with examples

• transportation: ex) OWU air travel data + carbon impact
• food: ex) bananas, Costa Rica, rainforests
• waste: ex) track e-waste from campus?
• ???

OWU Transportation

• Bobby St. Clair: survey (to be sent to students) + GPS tracking + Faculty/Staff commute
• Physiological / Health (shift to other side of the Gak Map?)

OWU Green Map Online: Java Mapping (need blog)

• Cartography 2.0
• Formats, design, development, link to new OWU Campus Map

I have compiled ideas generated in class on Wednesday, and included some additional ideas about our green map project.

There are details below regarding audiences, form & design, collaboration, and content.

Veronica Malencia (who is in our class) and Alecia Welu will focus on the general green map and its content as part of an independent study this semester. Students in 355 can contribute to that part of the project, but it is not a primary focus.

Students in 355 will work (alone, or in groups) on a “substantive” content project. I list a few independent study projects that will be part of our overall green map project, along with some ideas for other projects.

Green Map Audiences:

• Potential OWU students: distributed by Admissions: appeal to students with interests in social and natural science environmental focus in studies; general appeal (“OWU is a Green University”).
• Existing OWU students: informational, engaging (get people to do stuff), and to get students to think about how what they do impacts the environment. Short-term residents, 18-21, etc.
• OWU faculty and staff: informational, engaging (get people to do stuff), and to get faculty & staff to think about how what they do impacts the environment. Longer term residents, 20s-80s, etc.
• Delaware community members: informational, engaging (get people to do stuff), and to get faculty & staff to think about how what they do impacts the environment. Longer term residents, children t0 elderly, etc.

Green Map Form & Design

• Paper map: Green Map Assemblage: one main OWU, Delaware City, and Delaware County map with general content (22″ x 17″ or larger) with series of smaller separate printed maps, brochures, cards, etc. (11″ x 17″ or smaller). Combined together in folder. Additional elements can be added in the future.
• Online map: map mashup from template vs programmed/designed site vs app.
• Graphic/cartographic design of project: does it need to tie into “look” of other OWU sponsored materials?

Collaboration on Content

• Geog 355 students (building on some previous work)
• Geog 360 (Environmental Geography) students
• OWU Sustainability Task Force (faculty, staff, students)
• Specific faculty & staff at OWU
• Sustainable Delaware (community)
• Earth Day 2011 (mid to late April)

Green Map Content: Overarching Issues

• What does Green mean? Compile list (what does it mean to us and to our audiences) and include aspects throughout our Green Map project.
• Relate audiences to content: what will appeal to each audience?
• Relate final form to content: how does end product shape class research on topics?
• Define relevant collaborators

Green Map Content: General Content

• Outsource: Veronica Malencia and Alicia Welu (independent study)
• Main (22″ x 17″ or larger) map. Campus and Delaware City on one side, Delaware County on other side.
• Compile categories of general content (recycling, food, transportation): Location of sustainable efforts (action), recycling facilities, energy-efficient buildings, alternative transportation, Green organizations, farmer’s markets, local food sources, re-use stores, sustainable living, Green business (who decides?).
• Include content included in sustainability assessment measures (CSAF, Sustainability Report Card).

Green Map Content: Substantive Content

• Focus of course projects: results of study and analysis of “green” topics
• Majors in course: will shape content of projects: Economics Management, Environmental Studies, Geography, Geology, Physical Education, Zoology.
• Topics: preliminary ideas
  • Outsource: Food: Brandt McDonough, Jack Schemenauer (independent study, StAP): sources of “green” food, vegan, vegetarian, organizations, cooking, recipies
  • Outsource: Transportation: Bobby St. Clare (independent study): faculty and staff “drive shed” and analysis of student driving, biking, walking patterns
  • Outsource: e-Waste on campus: Tim Schmidt (independent study)
  • Campus/area ecosystems & wildlife (birds, fish, etc.): project and cards from Spring 2010
  • Connections between ecologically important areas (existing and proposed)
  • Development of “Curricular Trail” like Mt. Holyoke College. We have somewhat less ecologically substantive areas, but still may work: tie together existing study/ecological areas on campus, indicate what is known about them, propose new areas to study (such as Olentangy River).
  • Map “grey” and “black” (bad stuff) vs. “green” areas on campus
  • Olentangy River: low-head dam removal, ecological impact, drugs in river, “blue way” and riparian issues: linear map
  • Storm drains and surfaces: see maps in this PDF
  • Global OWU: map connections: where what you eat is from and impacts, etc. Economic/political ecology
  • Development and green space in area (old green space project, updated, DALIS): enhance with evaluation criteria such as Forestland Evaluation and Site Assessment (FLESA) + GIS tools
  • Micro-geography of environmental topics (a la Green Man Moop Map)
  • Cool To Do Not So Far from OWU: see last project in Geog 360 Projects Fall 2010
  • something for econ people: ?
  • something geology: ?
  • something for phys ed people: ?

Some updated thoughts… Wednesday, January 26:

Ohio Wesleyan | Delaware Green Mapping Project

1. Ohio Wesleyan | Delaware Ohio | Green Map

• see “Green Map Content: General Content” above
• Veronica Malencia and Alecia Welu (independent study)
• Larger format, 2 sided map (OWU area on one side, Delaware County/watersheds on other)
• Categories of content (transportation, recycling, efforts/actions, organizations, etc.)
• Content from individual class projects (how to include some but not all of the info)

2. Olentangy River | Delaware Ohio

• Veronica Malencia, Ethan Perry, Everett Smith
• diverse issues affecting the Olentangy River
• plan “Olentangy River Expedition” for spring: canoe or wade & document (photos, etc.) from dam (north) to county boundary (south)
• ecological issues: low-head dam removal, pollution/runoff, water testing, animals, plants, development, etc.
• action: use issues: prospects for recreation: a “blueway”

3. OWU Green / Curriculum Trail

• Rachel Bowes, Meredith Palmer, (Joanne Neugebauer)
• research & map a proposed “trail” connecting key habitats, ecosystems, and study areas around OWU; develop a proposed trail (proposed stuff)
• what is extents of area covered
• compile various “ecosystems” or habitats on and around campus, study areas used for classes, etc.
• compile related birds, animals, trees, plants, insects, etc.
• trading cards
• action: get people out and noticing and understanding the environments near campus

4. Earthly Delights around OWU

• Alexandra Bishop, Mary Boatwright
• map with places near OWU to go and do green stuff: camping, canoeing, fishing, hiking, biking, etc.
• plan expeditions for all activities, compile details from start to finish how to go about doing these activities
• activities should be diverse, and in diverse environments, walkable, bikeable, and drivable
• stress learning about the environmental issues surrounding each activity
• stress health benefits (physical, mental)
• action: get out in the environment off campus

5. Global OWU Environment

• Christopher Demecs, Neil Michaels, Robert Striler
• Map stressing the global environmental impacts connecting OWU to our region, state, country, continent, world. Positive and negative examples. Examples at different scales.
• generate a series of ways OWU is connected into a global ecosystem: examples
  • food: banana (connection to rainforest destruction in Costa Rica), factory farms (impact on environment here of food shipped all over US)
  • transportation: data on vehicles registered on campus; CO2 impact; Honda Plant; CO2 generated by student, staff, and faculty flying
  • energy: car dealership wind turbine, OWU geothermal
  • vegetation/plants: native tree nursery (replacing non-native tree species)
  • water: prescription drugs, agricultural chemicals in water
  • waste: sewage (where does it go), garbage, e-waste (to Africa? China?)
• action: think about and act in an environmentally responsible manner

6. OWU Transportation

• Nicholas Chilkov, Zachary Frentsos
• Map of “drive-sheds” of faculty, staff in central Ohio with calculations of CO2 and other impacts
• Map of student movement on and around campus: track walkers, bikers, drivers & environmental and personal (calories, etc.) impact
• Action: draw attention to driving; encourage alternatives

7. Eating OWU

• Sophie Gage, Zack Kaminski
• Map and information on where to get “green” food, where to prepare it (kitchens and utensils), how to prepare it (recipes) and food socialization.
• Action: eat for the environment and yourself

8. OWU and Delaware Gak Map

• Michael Davidson
• Map and information on water, soil, air contaminants, bad food choices, pollution sources, cars and traffic dangers; focus on what you as a person are exposed to, the chances of bad stuff happening, etc. Smoking.
• Action: get depressed, don’t come to OWU, etc.

Source